NESTING

hygge (noun), pronounced “HOO-gah”– A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture). Some refer to it as a “coziness of the soul.”

Like many of you, I’ve been desperately in need of incorporating a feeling of security and joyfulness into my life to buffer some of the bad stuff going on out there. As we become filled to the breaking point with media headlines screaming bad news at us, I’ve intentionally sought out a balm for the soul that I could utilize on a regular, if not daily, basis. For me, that balm was hygge.

By now, you may be familiar with the word “hygge” and the hygge lifestyle so popular in Scandinavian countries. Fortunately, this lifestyle has spread over to our country in recent years. Though practiced year round and not just around the holidays, hygge does lend itself to this time of year when you can spend time out in the snow and then get cozy indoors with crackling fires, candlelight, and warm cups of tea or cocoa. Cuddling up with blankets, our pets, and spending quality time with our children also feature prominently into the hygge lifestyle.

And while all of these things factor highly into the hygge picture, it is savoring the moment and appreciating the people and simple things in our lives that really define the hygge lifestyle.

Cinnamon Stars image courtesy of Pixabay

Without realizing it, hygge is something I instinctively gravitated towards anyway, so it’s a natural fit for me, and I suspect for many people the world over as well. For our Christmas mantel this year, I thought I’d try a cinnamon ornament garland. I like how the hearts and animal cutouts on the ends give it a homey feel. You can decorate the cutouts with ‘snow’ by using a little glue and white glitter, but I decided to keep it simple.

The recipe for this delightfully-scented cinnamon garland can be found by visiting Non-Edible Cinnamon Ornaments from allrecipes.com. One reviewer of this project summed it up perfectly, adding:

“This is a very fun and easy craft project to make with children. Makes wonderful smelling ornaments and pretty ‘package tie-ons!'”

I’m looking forward to delving into the hygge lifestyle more over the holidays, but for now I’m enjoying the simplicity of coming home to our cottage, our little scented garland, and hot mugs of tea after romping around in the cold with our dog.

These additional books on living the hygge lifestyle are also highly recommended by readers:

I’ll definitely be reading at least a few of these books! For now, I’m reading Happy as a Dane by Malene Rydahl. For daily doses of hygge inspiration, I’ve been enjoying these two Facebook groups, where you can join in to embrace and share ideas about the hygge lifestyle:

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For those of you like myself who aspire to sewing greatness but sometimes feel intimidated by the more mechanical aspects of sewing machines, I know you’ll appreciate this easy method for adding rick rack trim to your sewing projects.

I had decided recently to create a chair cover using a fabric with an overall pattern in a small scale for a bedroom chair. The fabric color and pattern were right, but after stapling the fabric into place on the underside, I realized something was missing. It just looked a little…blah.

It occurred to me that I might be able to add some colorful rick rack trim, but I DEFINITELY did not want to remove the fabric that I had just carefully stapled into place in order to stitch it on. And then it hit me ~ why not just glue the rick rack into place?

I knew it needed a contrasting color in the lavender or plum family, but Jo-Ann Fabrics seemed to be all out of rick rack in those colors. Fortunately, a recent visit with my mother-in-law, who is an expert sewer and who has an amazing stash of fabrics and trimmings, turned out to be much more fruitful, as she had the perfect shade of rick rack for my project.

And so began my little cottage chair makeover. Here are the easy steps I took:

Fabric scissors will definitely work better than scissors meant for paper cutting. You’ll get a cleaner edge than you will with paper scissors.

Liquid Stitch or Aleene’s Tacky Glue

You can buy Aleene’s Tacky Glue from Jo-Ann Fabrics and other craft stores, and a quick online search revealed that you can buy the Liquid Stitch from a number of online retailers, like Amazon. Looks like Walmart also carries it.

A little patience and a steady hand!

The thick consistency of these adhesives can make it a little tough to place your dots evenly without getting it stuck to everything else. A steady hand and no sudden movements will definitely help!

Instructions:

Test First

Be sure to test your chosen liquid adhesive on a piece of paper first to make sure it doesn’t have a tendency to seep through the trim. You’ll also want to make sure you don’t overload the rick rack with too much adhesive to prevent seepage as well.

Cut Your Lengths of Rick Rack

I found it helpful to cut 4 lengths of rick rack trim first rather than trying to deal with one long length and then contorting it into place. Cut the ends on an angle so that you can miter the corners in the next step.

Miter Your Corners

Corners should be mitered, like so, to give it the appearance of seamless transitions around the corners. As you can see from this close-up shot, my mitering is slightly off, but you can’t tell from a distance and believe me, neither will anyone else!

Add the Adhesive and Place Carefully

It was definitely a little tricky adding the dots of adhesive and not getting it stuck to my fingers or the middle of the chair pad, where I obviously didn’t want it sticking, but hopefully you’ll get into a rhythm like I did after a while.

Press with Your Fingertips

Press firmly but carefully with your fingertips to ensure good staying power. Check your work for evenness periodically, but it doesn’t need to be perfect. Remember, this is a cottage chair makeover, not a custom upholstery job by an expensive interior design firm.

Sit back and admire your work! This chair once had a dark cherry wood stain but is now bright and cheerful thanks to a little chalk paint and a new chair cover.

I love the way the updated chair cover coordinates so beautifully with our bedding and the rest of the decor in the room, and it sure was easy! The color and texture of the rick rack gave the chair pad just the right amount of decorative interest and pop. It might not be the height of sophistication, but for anyone with a make-do attitude who loves vintage cottage style, this project is for you! Now, let’s see what else I can add rick rack to…

Continued prayers for everyone in Florida

dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

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As part of our bedroom mini-makeover, I decided to finally bite the bullet and mount something “interesting” on the wall above our wrought iron bed.

After tossing around many ideas, including displaying dishes in a semi-circular design, layering a wreath in front of an old window, installing a wooden shelf with pegs, adding a wall of wallpaper behind the bed, and mounting a piece of architectural salvage that I felt reasonably sure wouldn’t clobber us over our heads in the middle of the night, I accidentally discovered exaaactly the thing that would go with the romantic prairie style I love. Best of all, it was free!

It basically involved walking past a scrap pile of salvage that my husband had stacked up in our back yard, spotting a length of rustic wood, and going “Huh, I think this could work.” Lucky for me, this delightfully weathered piece of wood had a convenient slot running along its entire length where accessories could be either nestled into for leaning against the wall or hooked onto for hanging from. Of course, like many of my ideas, it would require a little hardware handiwork from my husband to see this idea come to fruition.

To complement the rustic prairie look, I found the most amazing carved wooden picture frames in a very chippy and shabby style while out on a recent shopping excursion at Home Goods. Love the detailing on them!

I decided to break with tradition and mount cheerful digital wallpaper patterns I found on Etsy into the two carved frames flanking the display. These digital wallpapers were a breeze to download, print out, and mount into frames. I found my digital wallpapers from Etsy seller digitalpaperetc, where you can find vintage-inspired and farmhouse-style patterns for as little as .99 cents per collection. A real steal, if you ask me.

Here’s an in-progress shot while I was still trying to figure out the rest of the display:

In progress….still needs some work.

Next came the fun part ~ deciding how to accessorize the shelf. I found a letter “R” in just the right size on Etsy for leaning against the wall. I wanted to add a touch of mulberry to complement the new lavender and natural linen look, and this fit the bill perfectly. I then added a mini-faux chandelier that I hooked onto the slot to give the display a touch of refined rustic. Now if only I could find a matching chandelier like this fab faux one to hang from the ceiling!

I knew I wanted flowers on the shelf to emphasize the natural look and feel of the room, and I was able to find two pots of faux flowers in purple and white in little cement pots. I also found a darling vintage purse in complementary tones in a sweet floral fabric from a vintage shop to hang from the bed post. Here’s how it all turned out:

I’m really pleased with how everything is starting to come together. Once the spring and summer flowers start blooming, I’ll probably swap out the faux florals for real blooms, but this is the overall look I was going for. And it’s nice to know I can move things around on the shelf whenever the mood strikes.

So don’t pass up that salvaged piece of wood you found lying around! You never know what you might make from it, and it could be just the thing you’ve been searching for to complement your farmhouse or prairie style home.

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“Getting bored with red…would be like getting bored with the person you love.”

~ Diana Vreeland, fashion editor and designer

Whether you love vintage style like I do or enjoy a more modern take on decorating, Valentine’s Day presents the ideal opportunity to express your own individual style.

Widely celebrated in the Victorian era, Valentine’s Day naturally lends itself to the heartwarming and endearing images that adorn postcards and other ephemera from the era. Today’s most charming graphics capture the warmth and spirit of vintage Valentines while adding a fresh spin and modern color palette to the traditional Valentine’s illustrations we’ve come to know and love.

Along with today’s post, I’m making available for your use and enjoyment two free Valentine’s Day printables, courtesy of The Graphics Fairy and papergravy.com. The first are decorative cupcake toppers that you can download, print, and create using a 2″ circular punch (if you’re good with a pair of scissors, you can carefully cut the circles out yourself). Attach with a little adhesive to wooden cupcake picks, and you’ve got a super-cute way to decorate a dozen cupcakes for Valentine’s Day. And who says cupcakes and wine don’t go together? You could pair your cupcakes with a delicate Moscato dessert wine for a match made in heaven.

The second group is a sweet garland (also from The Graphics Fairy) that you can print and cut out to decorate your home with. A very swoon-worthy garland that you can stash away to use again next year!

And if either of the above printables aren’t quite your style, you can search The Graphics Fairy’s website for her archive of free vintage Valentine’s Day graphics! How sweet is that?

I hope you enjoy these charming images and can incorporate them into your Valentine’s Day! Because life’s too short not to have a little fun on a day (ahem…week or two) honoring love, passion, and generous hearts.

Hope your Valentine’s Day will be coming up roses this year!

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Happy Holidays everyone! First off, my apologies for the change in appearance to my blog. Somehow my sidebar menu that usually appears on the right side of the screen has mysteriously switched places with my written content. Hoping to get to the bottom of that pronto!

This Christmas I’ve decided to dial things back a notch. Instead of focusing on decorating our home as much as I normally do for the holidays, I’ve scaled things back in favor of a less harried, more peaceful Christmas. No over-the-top displays, no big holiday party entertaining this year; just an appreciation for the cherished people and simple pleasures in our lives that mean the most.

Just the same, I would like to share with you my newest gift-giving favorites that I discovered this year, along with a few old favorites that never seem to get old, no matter what year we’re in, like the mischievous Christmas elf above, and the vintage Flexible Flyer sled, holiday door jingler and old, painted spindle below.

I found a treasure trove of fantastic gifts from Marshall’s this year, including a beautifully wrapped bar of pine-scented soap and a “Vintage Oak” candle (for the men in our lives!), which smells wonderfully masculine but not in an in-your-face sort of way. Marshall’s sells an array of pre-wrapped soaps in festive wrapping papers and coordinating ribbons, sold both singly and in tasteful stacks of three, along with a stellar assortment of fragrant candles in seasonal and wintery blends, all at can’t-beat prices.

Of course, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without cards and gift wrap. The cards below are from two of my favorite stationers, Paper Source (ski lift card) and Cavallini (owl and mushroom card with the subtlest hint of micro-glitter). The roll of pine and holly berry gift wrap is also from Paper Source, and the letterpress reindeer gift tags are from Sugarcube Press.

For the home this year, I did find a beautiful woodland style pillow with an elk head design on it at Country Curtains that I absolutely love. One of the best features of this rustic seasonal pillow is that it has a zip-off pillow cover that you can throw in the wash, which of course is perfect for those of us with pets or kids in our lives. I plan to use this pillow all winter long.

But one of the very best gifts of the season is music. Below are my three favorite Christmas CD’s of all time. You may not be familiar with the Ally McBeal Christmas CD (do you remember the Ally McBeal TV show from the late 1990’s?), but I want to share this CD with you anyway. This was a gift from an old friend of mine, and I have to say it’s the perfect mix of soulful, upbeat, and heartfelt songs that could melt the heart of the biggest Scrooge out there. My husband is both touched and amused every year when he puts this CD on, and without fail, my eyes will start tearing up. I’m basically a blubbering mess by the end of it (but in a good way, you know?). You can purchase this CD, featuring the voice of Vonda Shepard and songs by cast members of the show, from Amazon. And what can I say about A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Nutcracker Suite? I consider these two CD’s to be amazing gifts from the universe. Pure magic in every way, and I would hate to ever be without them at Christmas time.

With time spent with loved ones being tops on my (and everyone else’s) list, I guess there’s nothing more to say but to wish each of you a

Blessed Christmas and Peace in the New Year!

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On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…a partridge in a pear tree.

With the holiday season now officially upon us, I’ve been thinking about how it’s the perfect time to eat, drink, and display our most curvaceous fruit ~ the pear ~ to its fullest extent. The subtle flavors, unique textures, and universally beloved shape of pears make them one of the best seasonal fruits starting with the first hush of fall, when trees first begin to drop their leaves and going right through the long, frosty winter.

Their high point comes at Christmastime, as pears take center stage at festive table settings across the globe. Whether sugared for a crystalline dessert display, extracted for syrups and cocktails, or perfectly sliced and fanned for tarts, pears lend subtly nuanced flavor to recipes ranging from the simple to the sublime. And not to go all Bubba Gump on you, but there are so many ways to prepare, preserve, and poach pears that you can get a little lost in the choices!

Photo courtesy of White Christmas by Tricia Foley

Pears make our homes come gloriously alive during the holidays, decorating fireplace mantles, wreaths, and table settings with their luscious shapes and colors.

When accompanied by partridges, pears have bedecked our Christmas trees and holiday cards with this beloved symbol of Christmas tidings for centuries, creating the traditional partridge in a pear tree look that we’ve come to know and love.

I love the sound of this recipe for Baked Pears with Honey, Cranberries, and Pecans that I recently found on the food blog thisgalcooks.com (see recipe below). Julie uses some of my favorite healthy ingredients in this recipe, especially as someone on the SCD Diet, which I’m currently on to heal my digestive troubles. Will definitely be trying this recipe very soon!

Baked Pears with Honey, Cranberries and Pecans

Baked Pears with Honey, Cranberries and Pecans is a super simple and healthy dessert recipe. These delicious pears are seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg for an extra boost of guilt free flavor! Prep time 15 mins. Cook time 30 mins. Serves: 8 servings

Author: This Gal Cooks

Ingredients

4 pears, such as Bosc, Bartlett or Anjou (I used Bartlett)

24 fresh cranberries

4 tbps chopped pecans

¼ tsp ground cinnamon, plus more, if needed

¼ tsp ground nutmeg, plus more, if needed.

4 tsp raw honey

Greek yogurt for pairing, if desired

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Halve the pears and then core. I cored the pears with a cookie scoop but you can use a melon baller, too. Slice a small part off of the backside of each pear half to create a flat surface so the pear sits flat when laid on the pan.

Place the pear halves on a large baking sheet or baking pan, cored side up. Place three cranberries into the cored part of each pear half. Sprinkle each pear half with about ½ tbsp of the pecans and then sprinkle each pear half with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Drizzle each pear half with ½ tsp of honey. I did this by squeezing the honey into a ½ tsp measuring spoon and then drizzling over each pear half.

Seckel (pictured below) ~ Its petite size and champagne-like flavor makes this variety a great accompaniment to sharp cheeses and wine and serving in salads.

So don’t hold back this holiday season when it comes to pears ~ there’s much more to appreciate about this gorgeous fruit than you might have thought! And remember to buy local and organic whenever possible. For more information about pears, along with tips on how to store and cook with them, please visit Saveur.

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Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.

~ Jim Bishop

With fall being the favorite time of year for many of us, it’s no wonder it’s such a great season for getting the creative juices going! One look through the fall editions of home decor magazines and blogs, and you’re bound to see why pumpkins are the ideal blank canvas for so many inspiring ideas.

This is a quick and easy DIY project that you can create in no time at all and will dress up your pumpkins quicker than you can say “Boo!”

Total time to create this look: 30-45 minutes

PUMPKINS WITH GILDED ACORNS PROJECT

For this project, you will need the following items:

Pumpkins with long, curvy stems, which I personally find irresistible, especially if they’ve still got a little of the vine still clinging to it. They’re just very expressive and seem to have so much personality, but I digress…white pumpkins will look amazing with the colors used in this project, but any color pumpkin will work beautifully.

Acorns with intact stems, preferably double acorns, which are harder to find but easier to tie on than single acorns.

Pine cones. Almost any kind will do, but I prefer the type shown below, as they’re easier to tie twine onto. For this project, I chose smaller spruce cones to go with my petite-sized sugar pumpkin.

Photo courtesy of pixabay.com

Metallic gold paint and a small paintbrush. You can even use gold spray paint for the acorns if you prefer. For this project, I used a product called Brush ‘N Leaf made by Amaco in Interior Antique Gold, which I bought from an arts supply store. TIP:Brush ‘N Leaf is also great for touching up worn-off gilding on old picture frames.

Jute twine in a narrow width.

Black and white ribbon (5/8″-7/8″ wide will work well but experiment and see what works best for you). Look for gingham, whip stitch, polka dotted, or even plain black raffia. Alternatively, you could try velvet ribbon in fall colors, like olive green and chocolate brown.

Instructions:

Paint acorns with metallic gold paint and let dry. If you also plan to paint the edges or tips of the pine cones, lightly paint those now and allow to dry as well.

While the acorns are drying, tie the pine cones onto the stem of the pumpkin with your jute twine so that the pine cones dangle, like so:

Next, tie your gilded acorns onto the dangling pine cones using additional jute twine, as much as you need to secure them. You’ll ultimately want the acorns and pine cones to rest near the base of the stem so hike everything up by wrapping the excess dangling twine around the stem base once or twice more.

Cut a length of ribbon (6″-8″ should be sufficient). Tie ribbon around the pumpkin stem into a bow and display. Here are examples of the completed project displayed on our mantel, one with gingham ribbon and the other with polka dotted:

ALTERNATE LEAF DECORATION: You can alternately substitute ribbon with leaf embellishments made of felt, burlap, or velvet. Below is a wonderful embroidered felt leaf pattern that I found on Etsy from TLCsTreasures, but you can also find pre-cut versions of felt leaves at craft stores without the embroidery. And here’s a fun example of burlap leaves in fall colors from Oriental Trading. Even real leaves will work if they’re pliable enough (try gilding them for a shimmery yet natural look). Once you’ve decided on the type of leaf, tie them onto the pumpkin stem using twine, or simply tuck the stems under the wrapped twine. You could also adhere the leaves directly to the top of the pumpkin with an adhesive (I find that Aleene’s Tacky Glue has great adhesion for crafts like these because of its quick drying time).

Keep your decorated pumpkins indoors or sheltered from the elements under a covered porch and enjoy your handiwork all season!

Can’t wait to carve up some jack-o-lanterns for Halloween! Enjoy the fall, dear readers…

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Hello, dear friends, and welcome to the weekend! Good golly, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but you see I’ve been in the throes of preparing for a craft fair where I’ll be selling my handmade greeting cards and party decor. Culling from my large supply of scraps of pretty papers, ribbon, and embellishments got me thinking about “found objects.” I had lost track of some wonderful pieces that were in my stash, and the process of rediscovering these forgotten gems had me comparing them to the found objects from the natural world I use as display pieces around the house.

Nests, feathers, rocks and stones, shells, beach glass, bark, driftwood…such are the gifts from the natural world that have the unique ability to turn an ordinary house into a home with an earthy and organic feel. Much better than the brand new but often soulless goods manufactured in a factory somewhere overseas.

Bird sculpture, hawk feather, and faux grapevine & twig bird’s nest.

Blue jay feathers collected from the yard.

But collecting found objects from nature does carry with it certain responsibilities. For example, did you know that in most states it is considered illegal to remove feathers from the ground? I was not aware of this myself until fairly recently, long after I had innocently begun collecting feathers found on walks. The law was originally put into effect when feathers were used as decoration in women’s hats and birds were being killed at an alarming rate. And because birds will often use feathers to line their nests, current law states that most feathers are not to be removed from outdoors or resold on the market. Legally hunted and farmed bird feathers are apparently OK (i.e. pheasant, turkey, etc). So what does that mean for the blue jay feathers I’ve collected from our front yard over the years, or the lone hawk feather I found three years ago? Should I return them to the outdoors now that they’ve been man-handled?

Birds’ nests should never be simply removed from trees and care must be taken if you do decide to bring one home with you. If you come across a tattered and windblown nest on the ground or long-abandoned nest in the rafters under your deck, then you’re most likely in the clear for bringing one home. But there are laws governing nest removal as well, and with all of the faux birds’ nests on the market nowadays, you may want to forego nest removal altogether in favor of one from a craft shop made out of twigs or grapevine, like the one pictured above that I like to display with my one lone hawk feather found years ago on a woodland walk.

It is also advisable to check for signage at trail heads first before removing tree bark from the forest, even if it’s in a state of decay and lying on the forest floor. I think it goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway!) that tree bark should never be peeled from a living tree. Some natural spaces have laws posted about removing organic materials from the woods, with concerns about disrupting delicate eco-systems, so be on the lookout for signage to that effect. You may even look into obtaining a permit from your local forest agency for collecting woodland materials just to be on the safe side. But if there’s a beautiful fallen birch branch in your neighbor’s suburban yard that you’d like to use for an indoor display and if it’s OK with your neighbor to remove it, then by all means go for it!

“Framed” bark, without the glass.

Treasures from the sea abound, and we’ve all got our share of shells, starfish, and the like. I don’t know whether there are any specific rules about collecting shells, but I’ve always seen them being sold at souvenir shops when on a coastal vacation and displayed in virtually every home I’ve ever visited! I think whatever laws exist about collecting shells are fairly obscure so I feel more comfortable about collecting them. Does anyone know?

A collection of white stones from Cape Cod beaches line a window sill.

I’ll leave you with this cautionary note: be on the lookout for gifts from the natural world, but we should all try to do our part in collecting sustainably and responsibly. If you love feathers like I do, the good news is that there are companies out there that have methods of turning legally harvested and cruelty-free feathers into sustainable items for craft projects and decorating. For more information, please visit Legally Harvested, Cruelty-Free Feathers.

Wishing you a joyful weekend of discovery!

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Ever feel like you could use a little more privacy in your life? Today, I’m going to show you how to make a folding privacy screen, easily and affordably, but first I want to give you a quick follow-up to my last post, Peony Season: 8 Tips for Making it Last, where I wrote that peony buds can be refrigerated for up to 12 weeks, and then put in a vase of water and they’d bloom as though they were still in season. Well, I gave it a try, and lo and behold it worked beautifully! The peonies shown here were photographed two days after removal from the refrigerator in bud stage. So glad to have found out about this amazing trick from Fina Gardens.

OK, back to the folding screen! With the open-floor plan of our upstairs living space, I wanted to create a privacy screen to selectively hide and block off views of my craft studio, which my husband and I also use as a home office. This dual space can get a bit unruly at times, what with craft supplies, fabrics, and work surfaces covered with works in progress. Like anyone’s home office, there’s also paperwork and personal info floating around that we’d like to shield from the gaze of visitors as they walk past the area (family members excepted, of course!).

There are some seriously swoon-worthy ideas for folding screens out there that you could aspire to if time and money were no object — painted and wallpapered ones with exotic birds and flowers, ones that incorporate glass or mirrors, and chippy painted ones with tons of character — but for the purposes of this project, our screen needed to be practical not glamorous.

Using a lattice folding screen that we found for free at the curb a few years ago (I always knew we’d need it for something!), an inexpensive sheet from KMart in eye-catching turquoise, and an extra brace or two from the hardware store, the total cost for this project came to a mere $14. If you keep your eye out at yard sales, Habitat for Humanity stores, or even curbside as you’re out driving around, you may be able to score a great deal on an inexpensive folding screen or even a freebie like the one we found. If not, you can always purchase the materials from Home Depot and construct one rather affordably yourself. So without further ado, here’s the low down on how to do it:

For this project, you will need the following:

Lattice-style folding screen (or the materials to make one)

Queen-sized flat sheet in your choice of color

Fabric scissors and chalk (or fabric marking pen)

An iron for getting the creases out

Staple gun and heavy duty staples

Slate for creating a “Private” sign (if using)

First, you’ll need to purchase a sheet in a solid color. Keeping it a solid color won’t interfere with the pattern of lattice work and will keep it from looking too busy. I love turquoise and aqua colors and tend to use them liberally throughout the craft studio/office, so I thought the color would be a good choice for this project.

The dimensions for most folding screens are pretty similar, with heights coming in at around 70″ inches and widths for each panel hovering at around 16″ or so. With these dimensions in mind, I chose a queen-sized sheet to cut up (90″ wide x 102″ long). Initially, I had planned to create gathers but decided to scrap that idea to save time and wound up with some leftover fabric. But if you do want to create gathers, roughly double the total width of each panel section to come up with the fabric width for each (for a 90″ wide queen sheet, you’d cut up your sheet into three 30″ wide sections). After measuring, marking with chalk, and cutting out my three panels, I gave them a quick touch-up with the iron to get the creases out.

Because of our sloped ceilings, one of the panel sections needed to be angled at the top. Hubby to the rescue since I’m not to be trusted around saws. He measured the angle of our ceiling and transferred that angle to the folding screen, cutting off the unnecessary portion, and then added a strip of molding to the top to give it a finished look.

Finally, the fun part: stapling the fabric onto the frame. Laying the folding screen down with the reverse side of it facing up, center one of your cut fabric pieces over the first lattice section so that an inch or so overlaps the frame on all four sides for stapling (you can create a folded edge to give it a cleaner look from the reverse side if you like). Staple every few inches for a secure fit. Do this for all three panel sections, and voila! Stand the folding screen up and admire your handiwork!

If you have any questions about this project, please let me know so we can share with anyone else out there who might be wondering about the same thing!

Safe travels to everyone this 4th of July!

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Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later — our peonies would get drenched by rainstorms and end up soggy reminders of their once majestic beauty. Today’s rains here in New England almost did them in, but I’m not willing to give up on them without a fight!

And who can resist the blowsy, billowy, waves of glorious color found in a peony garden? Their intoxicating aromas alone, which can range from flowery to spicy to citrusy (although I’ve read some don’t have any scent at all), can fill a room or garden with their fragrance in no time.

Their large blooms look gorgeous arranged in every type of vessel, from humble glass bottles to silvery mint julep cups to overflowing arrangements in casual ceramic pitchers. Peonies mix beautifully with other flowers, like the false indigo shown below. Get creative with their foliage, as it’s very long lasting, making their leaves perfect for flower arranging weeks after the peonies have finished blooming.

Depictions in art and home decor abound, like the framed still life with peonies shown below that I like to display on our mantel every spring, or the colorful vintage peony sandwich plates shown below, right.

For all of their gorgeousness, they do have one fatal flaw: their fleeting beauty. So how do we make it last? Believe it or not, there are actually a few ways to extend peony season. If you like peonies as much as I do, you’ll want to keep them blooming as long as possible. Below are some very useful tips for extending their beauty.

8 TIPS FOR EXTENDING THE LIFE OF PEONIES

Cut peonies while still in bud. If you cut peonies before they’ve completely bloomed, you’ll get to enjoy more days with them. I’ve been cutting both buds and blooms in all stages of flower to get maximum peony power.

The tendency of peonies to flop over in the garden can do a real number on them, but propping them up will extend their life in the garden longer, especially after the inevitable rains come.

Incorporating some late blooming varieties in addition to early blooming ones will help to extend the season.

Once cut, keep peonies away from fruits and vegetables because the ethylene gas that they give off speeds up the aging process.

Also keep away from direct sunlight and heat sources.

As with other cut flowers, changing the water every few days is recommended. It’s also a good time to recut the stems, which will help them drink up more water.

And for the best tip of all I’ve heard yet: Cut peonies in the bud stage (enough for a bouquet’s worth). Do not put them in water; instead wrap them in plastic wrap, and store them in the refrigerator, stored as far away from fresh fruits and veggies as possible. They’ll last for up to 12 weeks! Can you imagine — peonies in July or August? I am SO going to try this and will let you know if it really works! They may be wilted, but you can revive them by taking them out of the plastic, cutting off an inch or so off the stems and then putting them in water. Supposedly, they’ll open up in a few hours.

And if YOU, dear readers, have any other tips for extending peony season, please share! For more info about peonies, please visit Fina Gardens online.

I take great pleasure in celebrating the beauty of the everyday and in creating a home that reflects my love of the natural world.

Not so much into trends or perfection here ~ imperfections and character are much more interesting in my book. Best of all, you don’t need to spend a fortune to create a charming, welcoming home with your personality shining through!

I’m wife to a wonderful husband of 12 years, “mom” to a lovable golden retriever, avid thrifter, greeting card designer, and home furnishings consultant.

I’m so glad you stopped by, and I hope you enjoy your visit! I appreciate all of your comments and read each and every one of them.

Celebrating the everyday EVERY DAY!

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